Get Me to the Church on Time

To worship the environment:

BRUSSELS - Belgian Defence Minister André Flahaut chartered a military helicopter to make it on time to a screening of Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth," according to La Libre Belgique.
The documentary is aimed at raising environmental awareness and promoting efforts from the public to combat climate change.

Flauhaut chartered the flight from Brussels to Hasselt. The two-hour flight produced 12 to 20 times more CO2 greenhouse gas than a car journey of the same distance. The newspaper also said the cost of operating the helicopter is estimated at about EUR 2,500 an hour.

The minister was questioned in Parliament about the matter on Wednesday. He said that the flight "did not cost the defence department any extra: it was included in the annual budget for the use of the helicopters." He added that the CO2 produced by the Belgian army only comes to 1 percent of the emissions produced by civilian aviation in Belgium. Environmental expert Els Keytsman said this was an asburd defence of his action.